Hello. 

 

My -97 felicia is starting to act up a bit. The engine has been burning a bit of oil and recently i was stuck in traffic for longer than usual and a bit later the engine cut out a few times while running at about 80km/h. Not for long though, just a few seconds each time, then it went along as usual again. Now the idle speed has dropped really low (250rpm), but sometimes it's normal at about 7-800rpm. Sitting in idle and hitting the brake hard a few times makes the engine rev up to normal idle speed for a little while. Since the idle is so low it has a tendency to stall at trafficlights etc. Sometimes is does stutter and hesitates a bit when i hit the accelerator but it usually drives just fine.

 

I have checked the condition of the thottle body and it has some oily residue in the valve area and quite a bit of oil sitting on the outside of it. The hose from the crankcase is soft and has sludge in it but its not blocked.

 

Do i need to do a cleaning of the trottle body and a realignment or can it be another cause for this issue? Petrol filter issue maybe?

Edited 2 November, 201312 yr by bic

Show us how the spark plugs look like.

They look ok except no 4 (distributor side) that has some buildup.

 

Did hopefully manage to cure my issue by cleaning up the venturi the lazy way. There was a bit of carbon around the throttle valve which was removed using a little brake cleaner and paper. It now seems to run just fine. Still have the oil burning issue though but its probably the piston rings and i got no time for such major surgery at the moment so it will have to wait. I seem to be lucky considering the tripmeter so i take my chances with it :p

Edited 2 November, 201312 yr by bic

yeah it's burning a fair bit of oil by the looks of the spark plugs, what are you going to do about it? nothing i guess, it's got a biblical mileage and you've said you are going to do no sugery on it, what it probably needs in an overhaul or a replacement engine to cure it

It's burning about half a liter of oil for every fifty liters of petrol, i can live with that for now. New rings would be nice but considering the amount of work and not having a proper garage to do it in, i probably just replace the car eventually (or get myself a garage ).

It's burning about half a liter of oil for every fifty liters of petrol

Your car will burn half a liter of petrol for every fifty liters of oil very soon. We usually hope people will try to rescue their cars. I know somebody that owns a Felicia 1.3 MPI with 300,000 miles on board and still going strong after new rings.

Edited 2 November, 201312 yr by adurer

I just hope it lasts over the winter period cause it's a pain to work on it in the cold. New rings, head gasket, timing belt and tensioner, breathing hose, oil and filter still going to cost me more than the car did so it might not be the right (economic) approach but considering i just put new brakes (everything except the drums) all around i probably do it anyway.   Is there anything else parts vise i would need to replace while i'm at it?

What I would say is, when you come to do the piston rings, get the cylinder head off and the pistons out before spending any money so you can inspect the bores before deciding what to do ?ith it.. There's no need to remove the engine from the car to change the rings..

Give it a compression test first. It's more likely stem seals than rings, but the rings aren't always the best on these.

Thanks for all the advice, i will do a compression test and also put some pressurised air down each cylinder to see if i have a leak down past the rings or at the valves.

It did run fine today after the quick TB-clean but the idle speed is still a bit unstable, swinging up and down between ~500-800rpm. Oh well.

Thats km, not miles.
So 180000km is not that bad of a milage.

I had a 1.6 engine in my first skoda. It drank alot of oil as well.
I'm very glad that I have upgraded to the 1.3 engine when I got the new non-rusty felicia.

Compression test: 12.5, 11.9, 12.0, 11.4 Bar

 

Not that bad i guess so the rings are probably quite ok.

Did slide a piece of cardboard underneat and after a night there is some oil on it so i do have a leak somewhere. Just might not be that bad after all.

Edited 4 November, 201312 yr by bic

Do the wet compression test after squirting a little engine oil on top of the pistons.

 

 

If you can, do a leak down test too.

 

Edited 4 November, 201312 yr by adurer